Deepest Desire
by DarthMittens
Summary: Percy, discontent with the way his life is going at the age of 19, pays a little visit to the sirens to figure out what he truly wants. Could everything he had ever wanted have been in front of him the entire time? Disregards kisses from BotL and TLO.


**A/N: Here's another Percy Jackson fic. The kisses in both The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian never happened. This is my little gift to you to celebrate the release of 'The Son of Neptune', which comes out tomorrow, yay!**

**Enjoy! Please don't forget to review!**

**Deepest Desire**

I grunted as Grover pulled the rope tight, firmly securing me to the mast. I could hardly breathe. Grover had gotten surprisingly strong since I had last seen him.

I truly was lucky to have such an awesome friend that he'd sail into the Sea of Monsters with me after having not spoken to one another for two years.

"You alright?" he asked, looking just the tiniest bit green. Grover never did well on water, especially on a small sailboat. He had refused to go by motorboat, claiming that it would pollute the water more than he found acceptable.

"Of course," I grunted, squirming. "You have Riptide?"

Grover held the pen up in one hand, grinning. There was no way I was going to make the same mistake as Annabeth.

"Okay, I'm going to put my earplugs in now," said Grover, holding up two small neon orange earplugs.

I took a deep, calming breath. This was my last chance to back out. Without another thought, I nodded with absolute confidence. This was the only thing that could get me out of my funk.

I was 19, almost 20, years old. The powerful scent that attracted monsters had died off considerably the day I had turned 18, according to Chiron. The only way it would ever flare again was if I took another quest, and even then it would fade away once said quest was completed. I had packed up my bags that day, gave my mother a kiss on the cheek, and went around the world, visiting any and all places of interest. I had gotten back six months ago but was too nervous to try to contact camp. I had taken a job at a local McDonald's, earning money while I attended community college.

Who would've guessed that I would get kicked out only six months in, which happened to be one week ago? I'm not going to go into details, but let's just say that it was somehow my fault that the math building exploded, according to the dean, and not the fault of the baby sphinx nor the satyr hopped up on coffee. It was only my feeble attempt at manipulating the mist that saved me from being arrested and charged for the damage.

Anyway, I digress. Long story short, my life sucked. The only thing I was good at was killing monsters…and apparently blowing up school buildings. I had no direction, no purpose, no destination in mind. I knew I had to do something about it.

My problem was that I didn't know what I _wanted_. I had always been told I could be anything, but once I hit 13 I figured that I would be killing monsters for the rest of my life. So much for planning ahead, huh?

That's how I found myself strapped to the mast of a sailboat in the middle of the Sea of Monsters, the sirens' island not too far away. Once I knew what I wanted, after all, I would have no problem attaining it, right?

I was getting giddy and restless as Grover took us near the outskirts of the range of the sirens' song, and I pictured Annabeth's face in my mind to calm myself down. Picturing her face always seemed to calm me down (and make me smile lazily). I never knew why until almost a year out of camp, when I realized I had a serious crush on my best (non-satyr) friend.

If I had stayed it might have developed into something, but who knows now, right? I hadn't seen her in almost two years. Any feelings she may have had for me were probably all but non-existent, if not completely gone.

I smiled wryly and shook my head, waiting for my vision to appear. A beautiful melody suddenly struck my ears, surprisingly loud. I began tugging at the ropes, wanting to go the source of the sound. I _needed _to be at the source of the sound.

A vision began to form in my head as I continued to strain and writhe, a vision that was, of course, a projection of my deepest desires, even if they were unknown to myself. I was playing on the beach at camp with a little girl of about three who had blonde hair curled like a princess's and my stormy green eyes. She was smiling a brilliant smile, her sweet laughter music to my ears as I made a bit of water assume the shape of a giant teddy bear and chase her. The glint of a wedding band on my ring finger caught my eye and I looked at a modest hut on the sand to find Annabeth, her belly bulging with a baby, with an almost-identical ring on her finger. She smiled at me and waved, then pointed at the swinging baby chair next to her and mimed sleeping, telling me that our one-year old (I didn't know how I knew that he was one…or that he was a 'he') was fast asleep. I smiled and waved back, and the vision shattered.

"Percy!" came a shout from in front of me. "Get a hold of yourself!"

A hand smacked me across the face. I stopped moving and looked at Grover, whose face was a little banged up. The sky was behind his head, which meant that I was somehow laying down.

"What happened?" I asked groggily, slowly standing up and rubbing my head absentmindedly.

"The rope wasn't strong enough," he said with a grim smile. "You're a son of the Sea God, you broke out with sheer strength alone. I held you down using a move I learned in our satyr wrestling classes. You punched me in the face a few times," he finished nonchalantly.

I grinned sheepishly at him. "Sorry about that, G-man," I said. "You want to get out of here?"

Grover nodded quickly and I willed the water to push us along, going so fast that the mast broke near the base from the sheer wind pressure the sail was receiving. At least after it broke the boat went faster. It took us a couple hours to make it up to Long Island Sound, and in all that time Grover didn't question me about my vision. I had a feeling he could already tell what it was and he knew that I would need to work out and accept what I saw myself.

At least my vision was pretty straightforward, unlike my dreams. There were several points that I knew to be facts. 1. I was married to Annabeth. 2. We had two kids and Annabeth was pregnant with our third. 3. Annabeth was happy. 4. I was happy.

It was hard to remind myself that I wasn't seeing the future as I berated myself for my stupidity. Now that I had seen it, it was obvious that I was in love with Annabeth! How could I have been so stupid? I needed to rectify my mistake as quickly as possible!

I pushed the boat until I beached us at camp at twilight, the last rays of sunlight providing just enough light to make our way up to the cabins. From what I had heard from Grover Annabeth was camp leader, now with 12 beads on her necklace.

It was dinner time. I looked at Grover and gave him a quick laugh before slinging an arm over his shoulders. I didn't know how I had gone almost two years without setting foot in this place…in my home. Grover grinned back at me and slung an arm over my shoulders in return. We walked up to the mess, where the fire was absolutely raging. They must've been doing their sacrifices.

I saw the campers eating and talking and laughing, all of them happy. It was all our home, and we were one big happy family. My eyes searched the Athena table without finding Annabeth, so I looked up at the staff table. Chiron was eating and joking along with the rest of the staff, where my eyes finally fell on Annabeth.

She was as beautiful as ever, her long, curly blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail and her piercing grey eyes still filled to the brim with intelligence. The only thing I didn't see that I had sorely missed was her smile. In fact, she seemed to have a sour expression on her face. Maybe she was eating something bad.

But even though there wasn't a smile on Annabeth's face, there was one on mine…until I spotted an arm around Annabeth's shoulders. That arm belonged to a very good-looking young man who I recognized as one of Aphrodite's children. I stopped dead in my tracks, almost making Grover fall. He looked at me in confusion and followed the trail of my eyes to find that bastard with his arm around Annabeth, a smug smile on his face.

"Percy, it's—" Grover started.

"No," I quickly said, cutting him off, feeling oddly calm. "I get it. Everybody's happy here without me. I'm just going to go."

"But Percy—" Grover insisted.

"Go up there and have fun," I said sadly, turning around and heading back the way I came.

I walked straight up to the boat, took one look at it, and walked straight into the water, wishing I could drown. It turned out there were drawbacks to having total command over water. I stayed close to the shore and laid on the ground, the surface of the water probably only about four feet above me. Before I knew it I was crying, all evidence thankfully immediately erased by the water.

I was too late. Annabeth was with somebody else now. The Aphrodite guy definitely looked happy. He looked so happy that I wanted to punch that pretty face until it looked like a pile of crap.

I wanted to beat myself up even more. Why was I such an idiot? Why couldn't I have recognized my feelings earlier?

I eventually cried myself to sleep, the warm water wrapped snugly around me like a blanket. I didn't get why the Fates had to torture me by making me fall asleep to an image of Annabeth in my mind.

When I woke up it was bright out, probably 11 AM by my estimation. I sighed, producing quite a few bubbles, before walking out of the water, immediately regretting my decision as I saw Annabeth waiting for me.

But I was no coward. How sad would that have looked if I had just turned right back around and went back into the water?

I began walking up the beach with my head held high, intending to walk straight past Annabeth and up to the Big House to greet Chiron.

But Annabeth had other plans.

She hit me full-on with a hug, sending us both sprawling in the sand. Annabeth was laughing as I spit the sand out of my mouth, annoyed.

"Gods, Annabeth, act your age," I said coolly, running a hand through my hair to dislodge more sand.

Annabeth visibly recoiled, her smile faltering. "I-I'm sorry," she said, confused. "I was just giving you a hug. I saw you last night. Why didn't you come up?"

I ignored the question, instead saying, "Aren't you afraid your _boyfriend_ might show up?" Now, I knew I was being unfair and malicious and mean. I was happy to see her, I really was, but right now my pain was a lot greater than my joy.

"Boyfriend?" Annabeth asked, her eyebrows meeting in the middle of her forehead in thought.

"You know…" I said, rolling my eyes. "Mark whatshisface from Aphrodite? He was all over you last night?"

Annabeth looked at me like I was crazy, then burst out laughing. "You think…" she said, gasping for breath as she held her sides, "…Mark?"

"Yeah, so?" I asked defensively as my cheeks heated up in embarrassment. She was laughing at me, great.

"Percy, Mark is so annoying," she said. "I've given up on trying to stop him from hanging all over me during dinner. Why do you think I had such an unpleasant look on my face?"

"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. "You mean…?"

"Percy," said Annabeth seriously, gripping my shoulders and looking me in the eye. "I. Hate. Mark."

I smiled and shook my head, ashamed at myself for jumping to conclusions like that. I cleared my throat and said, "So…er…"

"So to what do we owe this visit, Mr. Jackson?" Annabeth asked me, flashing me a brilliant smile. Gods, she was beautiful when she smiled like that.

"I was hoping it would turn out to be more than just a visit," I admitted sheepishly.

Annabeth's face lit up and she hugged me hard, not letting go as she pulled back to smile at me again. "That's great! Why the sudden interest in Camp Half-Blood again?"

"The sirens," I said cryptically, wanting to make her guess. Plus, the longer she kept her arms around me the better. It was odd that everything had just fallen back into place with Annabeth. It was like I had never left.

"The…the sirens?" she asked, trying to understand what I was getting at.

"I paid a little visit to our good friends the sirens," I said. "I heard their song."

"What did you see?" Annabeth immediately ask before the expression on her face turned into a look of alarm. "I mean…you…I…you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she finally said, looking down at my chest.

I wrapped one arm around her waist and gently brought her head up with a soft touch to her chin so her eyes met mine. Her eyes were glistening with an unknown quality and I said, "It'll take too long to explain." With a sudden burst of courage, I also said, "It'll be much easier if I just show you."

Annabeth's eyes fluttered closed as I leaned my head in towards hers, gently pressing my lips against her soft ones. The kiss remained chaste but passionate, our lips moving in tandem, both of my arms wrapping around her as hers tightened around me.

When I pulled back we were both smiling, and Annabeth softly said, with our noses touching, "You don't even know how long I've wanted you to do that."

"I don't even know how long I've wanted to do that," I admitted as I cracked a smile. Annabeth giggled, a sound I had never heard come from her before, and I said, "It took three ugly, weird vulture-things to make me realize I had loved you for I don't know how long."

"You-you love me?" Annabeth said in disbelief.

"Yeah," I said with a contented sigh. "And I'll do whatever it takes to make you fall in love with me."

Annabeth let out a huff and leaned in to whisper in my ear, "You're so stupid, Seaweed Brain. I've been in love with you for years."

She pulled back and smiled at me before giving me another kiss, this one lingering and more than a little hot. I was practically panting after she broke the kiss, and she gave me another sweet, innocent smile before her leg hooked around mine and she pushed me, sending me sprawling in the sand for the second time in ten minutes.

"Last one to the Big House is a rotten egg!" she cried as she sprinted towards the building, acting more like she was 12 rather than 20.

I grinned and hopped to my feet, sprinting as fast as I could.

I had lost time to make up for.


End file.
